Compromise Host Software Binary T1554
Adversaries may modify host software binaries to establish persistent access to systems. Software binaries/executables provide a wide range of system commands or services, programs, and libraries. Common software binaries are SSH clients, FTP clients, email clients, web browsers, and many other user or server applications.
Events covered
11 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.
| Provider | Event | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Sysmon | Event ID 1 | Process creation |
| Sysmon | Event ID 7 | Image loaded |
| Sysmon | Event ID 11 | FileCreate |
| Sysmon | Event ID 22 | DNSEvent (DNS query) |
| Sysmon | Event ID 23 | FileDelete (File Delete archived) |
| Sysmon | Event ID 26 | FileDeleteDetected (File Delete logged) |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 4663 | An attempt was made to access an object. |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 4688 | A new process has been created. |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 4697 | A service was installed in the system. |
| Defender-DeviceEvents | any | Defender event (any) |
| Defender-DeviceProcessEvents | any | Process activity (any) |
Authoring guide
Patterns shared across the 15 rules above: which fields they filter on, what specific values they look for, and what they exclude. The catalog normalizes field names across vendors so Sigma's Image, Elastic's process.name, and Splunk's process_name collapse into one row. Each rule contributes at most once per row.
Fields filtered most (24 distinct)
The fields most rules look at when detecting this technique. The How column shows the operators authors use (eq, wildcard, regex_match, match) and how often each appears. Sample values are concrete examples to start from, not an exhaustive list.
Top indicator values (785 distinct)
Specific (field, operator, value) combinations the rules check for, ranked by how many rules under this technique use each one. The Corpus reach column counts how many rules across the entire catalog (any technique) check the same combination. High numbers point to widely-used indicators that are likely noisy on their own; combine them with another condition for useful signal. Blank means the combination is specific to rules under this technique. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that use it.
Exclusions (65 distinct)
Field/operator/value combinations excluded by rules under this technique (top-level not() clauses), sorted by how many rules exclude each. These are the false-positive paths the community has learned to filter out. A new rule that ignores the high-count entries here will likely fire on the same noisy paths. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that exclude it.
Rules under this technique
Every rule in the catalog tagged with this technique, grouped by vendor. Click a rule title for its full predicates, exclusions, and indicators.
Sigma 2 rules
Elastic 7 rules
- Deprecated - Adobe Hijack Persistence
- Potential Masquerading as Browser Process
- Potential Masquerading as Communication Apps
- Potential Masquerading as System32 Executable
- Potential Masquerading as VLC DLL
- Suspicious Communication App Child Process
- Suspicious Outlook Child Process